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Working on laptops....

M

mgravy

Senior member
Mom's got a Dell Insprion laptop with a bad video card. Of course, she is 3 months out of warrany. She took it into a shop and they told her that she is going to have to ship it back to Dell for a new motherboard.

Now she is thinking about ditching the whole thing and having me build her a desktop and giving me the laptop.

Question: I have never owned a laptop or opened one up, but I have built quite a few desktops. Would a Dell laptop be servicable by a backyard PC mechanic like me? I'd like to find a replacement motherboard (even a refurbished one) and swap it out myself, but I don't want to bother if it's going to be a mess.

Anyone have experience with doing something like this?

 
With small scewdrivers, a large workspace and reasonable problem solving skills dismantling a laptop is not very difficult, just time consuming .

My inspiron, an 8200, has a video card that is discrete (not integrated into mobo) and can be replaced. Yours may be also. Check the dell website and see. You can order the video cards ( choice of geforce2go, radeon 9000 or Ti4200 I think) and install it yourself.

If you choose to open it yourself, spread a large towel on the work surface to avoid scratching things and as you remove screws and parts, take notes or use a digicam to take pics so that you'll know what goes where when it's time to reassemble.

I've had mine apart a few times, takes about an hour to dismantle, slightly longer to put back together.
 
Hi, Laptops do not usually use a Video Card. It's built into the Motherboard. I have repaired many Laptops, but have many yrs of experience. Most beginners end up with a door stop. Luck, Jim
 
So, opening the thing up is no real surprize? The Motherboard just screws in and lifts out and everything else that isn't onboard plugs in like a desktop? -If that's the case then I guess there is nothing to be afraid of as long as I can locate the part I need.

I?m guessing that everything is just crammed into the case in tight layers. I?ve used a digicam in the past when dismantling my 36?plotter and it worked well. It?s probably worth a shot?.
 
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